Dying in the Wool (33 page)

‘They’re all a mistake.’

Mother was thoughtful for a moment and then decided to come to the lecher’s defence. ‘Perhaps he was just a little enthusiastic, bowled over by you.’

‘He will be bowled over if I see him again.’

‘Some men, they see a wedding ring, and they hear a
young woman’s a widow …’

‘So I’m to take off my wedding ring? Or wear a sign,
Yes I’m available but no pawing until we’ve known each other ten minutes.
’

Mother sighed and gave up, for the moment.

I gazed out of the carriage window. Green fields sped by, hedges and ditches, wildflowers, lambs, birds in the trees. There is something so damned obvious and annoying about April. It gets under one’s skin without asking. Something in us seems primed to drown in longings, to fall in love with a man seen from the top of a tram, or some mysterious person who might be just around the corner.

‘Hasn’t there been anyone you’ve found the least bit attractive?’ Mother asked plaintively.

‘No one suitable.’

‘Oh blow suitable. Your father wasn’t suitable.’

‘No one I could see a future with, let’s put it that way.’

Mother sighed. ‘Don’t become a mistress, dear. It wouldn’t suit you. And you’re still young.’

‘I don’t feel young.’

‘I was your age when I had the twins. I wouldn’t have liked to have left it very much longer.’

I shut my eyes, feeling suddenly weary. The April effect evaporated. Being witness to two horrible deaths left me feeling emotionally scooped out. I pretended to sleep, and very soon did, for a long stretch of the journey to London.

Aunt Berta has a way of making a person feel very special. When she heard Mother’s worries that I had lost weight, she came to my room with her maid and insisted we look through every item in my trunk as it was unpacked.

‘You see, Aunt Berta, Mother’s worrying about nothing.’

Aunt Berta nodded. ‘All the same, we’ll go out shopping. There’s some lovely material in Liberty’s, and I have
the latest pattern books from Paris. You’re invited to a wedding I hear?’

‘Yes. Tabitha Braithwaite’s. We were in the VAD together. She’s marrying in May.’

‘Goodness, we’re almost in May. Easter next week, then May around the corner. Have you bought a hat?’

‘No.’

‘And have you selected a wedding outfit?’

‘Not yet.’

She beamed with delight. ‘Then that will be our task. You must have a picture hat. That should be chosen first, then the gown. People always get it the wrong way round. A wedding will make a pleasant change for you. Does Miss Braithwaite have brothers?’

‘She had one brother, Edmund. He was killed on the Somme.’

‘How sad. And the bridegroom, who are his people?’

‘Oh … they have land and farms with tenants, that sort of thing.’

Aunt Berta put a hand on my arm. ‘I’m glad you’re getting out and about. Your mother worries about your investigations and your photography, but I think it’s downright plucky.’

On the evening of the birthday dinner party, I stood with Aunt Berta and Uncle Albert in the hall, to greet arrivals. The Conan Doyles’ carriage drew up.

Aunt Berta nudged me. ‘Sir Arthur and Lady Jean are about to set off on a tour of America but wouldn’t miss my party. They’re very fond of you, you know, Katie. For two pins they’d ask you to accompany them.’

My aunt blissfully ignores inconvenient facts, such as the gulf between the Conan Doyles’ beliefs and mine. They’re skipping off to America to promote spiritism – knock-knocking on the door of the beyond.

‘I should like to go to America, Aunt, but not just now.’

‘We must look into that,’ Mother said. ‘An Atlantic voyage would do us good, but I don’t suppose your father will spare the time.’

‘Then you and I must go.’

‘When?’ Mother asked.

Why do I say these things?

Fortunately we were interrupted. When Sir Arthur and Lady Jean swept in, I went into the ballroom with them. Sir Arthur is so intense, but there is always some gem of wisdom to be got from him. Occasionally a person will say something that gives you another way of looking at the world, and he can do that better than anyone else I know. They have known me since I was a little girl. Lady Jean is always charming. All the same they do try to convert me to spiritism. I refuse to try and contact Gerald in the beyond.

Gerald was a great fan of Sir Arthur’s historical novels and passed them to me. The last time I met Sir Arthur, I had a dream that we did contact Gerald and he wanted to talk about Sherlock Holmes.

I chatted to Sir Arthur and Lady Jean about their planned trip to America, and all the engagements arranged for them.

Lady Jean is a great one for getting other people to talk. I found myself telling them about the Braithwaite case.

When he heard that Joshua Braithwaite was found in the beck, Sir Arthur’s interest sparked immediately. I led him into the library where I had my photographs tucked onto one of the lower bookcases. Truth to tell, I hoped he might have some astonishing insight into the case of the missing Joshua Braithwaite.

Lady Jean followed, as if she had decided never to let her husband out of her sight.

‘How extraordinary!’ He examined the photograph of Tabitha with the waterfall in the background. ‘This is so like Cottingley where the fairies were spotted and
photographed by those two young girls. You’ll have seen my book on that?’

‘Yes.’ I tried to sound both interested and non-committal. No photographer worth their salt would imagine that those photographs were anything other than total fakes, but nevertheless Sir Arthur and his Spiritualist friends had chosen to believe there really were fairies.

Sir Arthur spoke with barely suppressed excitement. ‘This gentleman who has disappeared, he may well have found his way through to the fairy world. I do firmly believe there are places on this earth – muddied as it is with our materialism, conflict and greed – where we can cross the line into that other world, that parallel universe of grace and joy. Behind the waterfall. There may be a clue.’

‘Mr Braithwaite didn’t find his way into a parallel universe. The scout leader called the local bobby. He was arrested and taken to hospital.’

‘And perhaps found his way back to the waterfall? This is most fascinating. It would be astonishing to have evidence of a man breaking through the barrier between this world and the next, propelled by grief, drawn by the call of his dead son. Take a look, Jean.’ He passed the photograph to Lady Doyle.

She creased her brow thoughtfully and said, ‘Mmmm,’ in a most intelligent and thoughtful tone of voice.

I needed to divert Sir Arthur from his other-world views if there was to be an earthly chance of his talking sense. ‘When Mr Braithwaite was found in the beck, he claimed not to have intended suicide. He was in a poor way, confused, bruised, with cuts to his face. It’s possible he’d fallen or been attacked. I don’t believe he was trying to find his way to another world.’

Sir Arthur looked saddened by my scepticism but obliged me with his speculative glance. ‘The clothes that he wore then – were they examined? Did they have marks
consistent with a fall? Say, if the lapels had been tugged, or some such thing, there might have been an assailant. It is best to look thoroughly, explore the most obvious details first.’

‘There was no note in the policeman’s account about his clothing being examined. He did have a scrap of material caught in his watch chain.’

‘What sort of material?’

‘It’s something between textured cotton and webbing, in a check, beige and red. I haven’t got the piece with me, but I did take a photograph.’

I produced the photograph from my briefcase. I had colour-washed it to reflect its faded beige, with red and black stripes, like a poor imitation of a tartan.

Sir Arthur examined it closely. ‘Some kind of upholstery, or lining. A heavy cotton weave?’

‘Yes.’

‘Probably woven in Lancashire.’

He passed the photograph to his wife. If she was already bored with me, she hid it well, saying graciously, ‘Mmmm. I do believe you’re right, my dear.’

Sir Arthur narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘This confusion the gentleman experienced, had he been treated for any ailment or disease? Certain medicines induce symptoms such as those you describe, or it could be that he had glimpsed the other world and if so I should be most interested to know the effect that would have on a man’s mind.’

‘I don’t know whether he was undergoing treatment. The regular village doctor was in the army. If Mr Braithwaite was ill the chances are he would have been relying on whatever home remedies he usually turned to.’

Could Braithwaite’s confusion have been caused not by his being duffed up as everyone thought, but by the overdose of some drug?

‘It would be wise to eliminate the obvious,’ Sir Arthur
said sagely. ‘I’ll send over my
materia medica
. You might find it useful to take a look. If so, I shall treat you to one of your own as mine is full of youthful scribbles in the margins. Keep it until we return from America.’

‘Thank you. I should very much like to see it.’

Sir Arthur beamed with pleasure at the prospect of doing me a good turn. This caused Lady Doyle to smile graciously.

They watched me pack the photographs back into my briefcase. ‘The art of investigation is in asking the right questions,’ I said.

‘Knowing what questions to ask is the hardest thing in the world.’ Lady Jean smiled – as if she would always know what questions to ask but would be too ladylike to voice them.

Sir Arthur leaned towards me. For a moment I expected an avuncular hand on my shoulder, but that is not his way. ‘You might ask yourself, Why am I so afraid of the unknown? Believe me, I know. I’ve seen my mother, my brother, my son. I’ve spoken to them. If you want to contact your poor dead husband, then do try. He may be waiting on the other side to give you a blessing, and permission to go on living.’

I snapped the briefcase shut. ‘But I am going on living.’

Lady Jean took Sir Arthur’s arm. The two exchanged a look of such love and conspiracy that it made my heart hurt.

I took the briefcase upstairs to my room.

As I came downstairs, Aunt Berta pounced. ‘There you are, my dear.’ She grasped my elbow firmly and manoeuvred me across the ballroom.

‘I believe you and this gentleman have met? This is Dr Grainger. Dr Grainger, my beloved niece, Mrs Shackleton.’

At that moment, the gong sounded for dinner. Aunt Berta disappeared to do the honours elsewhere.

‘Lovely to see you again so soon, Mrs Shackleton.’

Dr Grainger gave a winning smile which did not win me. He had wasted no time in shutting up Milton House Hospital and leaving it, and Evelyn, behind.

‘I’m intrigued, Dr Grainger. How did you wangle an invitation to my aunt’s birthday bash?’

He reddened slightly with embarrassment. ‘You mentioned that your father knew Professor Podmore …’

‘He’s a very old friend of my uncle’s.’

‘You know I’m working with the professor? He took pity on me and mentioned me to your aunt.’

‘I see.’

And of course Aunt Berta would have jumped at the chance of inviting an up and coming eligible man with all his limbs and no glaring defects.

Dr Grainger offered me his arm. I didn’t need an arm. He had obviously been out of society too long and had pre-war manners.

He said, ‘I wangled an invitation because I wanted to see you again. Hope you don’t mind.’

‘Dr Grainger, last year I was seated between a lecher and a ninny. At least I can be sure you will not presume to stroke my thigh or recite bad verse.’

My father once asked Sir Arthur how it was he could have been so dispassionate in defending Sir Roger Casement, when everyone knew the man to be a traitor. Sir Arthur had answered that Roger Casement was not in his right mind when he committed the offence, and that it was necessary for men of judgement (it was always men) to make allowance for human weaknesses, inherent flaws and mental failings that could not be helped.

I bore this in mind as I took Dr Grainger’s arm.

Aunt Berta’s dinner party has shrunk over the years. Pre-war it had been a great social event, then for five years, she would not celebrate at all. Only Mother came to be with her during those times, and my mother never failed her. Aunt Berta had her first child on her twenty-fourth
birthday. Albert Tobias would have been the same age as me had he lived, thirty-one. Mother once told me that it was after she saw Albert, picked him up from his cot and sang a nursery rhyme to him, that she hurried back to Yorkshire determined to adopt a child. Me.

We were, by Lord and Lady Pocklington’s standards, a modest gathering of fourteen. The Conan Doyles sat either side of Uncle Albert, with Professor Podmore to Jean Doyle’s left and Mrs Podmore opposite her husband. Mrs Podmore is on the board of a children’s charity and shamelessly canvases for funds at every opportunity. I sat beside Professor Podmore and talked to him, and to Dr Grainger opposite me, about their progress towards the opening of the Maudsley Hospital. Professor Podmore has visited the United States of America and so was able to chat to the Conan Doyles about the places they would visit. On my left sat the old world colonel who was at the siege of Ladysmith and whose conversation seems frozen in time. If one elicits his opinion on any event after 1900 he seems as puzzled as a child who missed the lesson on Rivers of England. Fortunately cousin James’ wife Hope was seated opposite the colonel. Hope very agreeably prompts others to speak and reveals nothing. She has a slightly oriental air but I am not sure whether this is due to her high cheek bones or the enigmatic look in her mysterious grey-green eyes. Cousin James is Something-in-the-War Office, so perhaps Hope Knows Things and keeps quiet to avoid inadvertently spilling National Secrets into the soup.